By Victoria Moy

The National Labor Relations Board ruling last week that the owner of Saigon Grill, Simon Nget, must rehire the workers he fired seemed to signify a resolution to a chapter of protests targeting a variety of Manhattan eateries over the past year. Disputes over wages and working conditions for delivery workers initially polarized the normally pro-labor neighborhood, and it looked like the board’s verdict might put an end to the saga.

But after three days of interviews with employees, residents and picketing organizers, it’s clear that neighborhood residents, although often sympathetic, are confused about whether internal disputes in restaurants are solved or ongoing and whether it’s safe to patronize them again.

“I’m not asking you to do this story because you’re the Asian reporter in the office,” my editor had said when she gave me this assignment.

Still, I felt I’d been tossed into the Chinese bourgeois-proletariat crossfire. As someone who grew up being very involved with the Chinatown community, I was afraid I’d have to expose a shameful secret: that sometimes people—people in New York, and especially immigrants in New York—suffer from a cultural psychosis. Those who are able to survive and succeed in an environment as harsh as New York will often, instead of being compassionate, inflict the difficulty they themselves survived onto newcomers.

From my observations, the Chinese immigrant owner-worker relationship is more complex than a story of one party exploiting another; it’s more akin to a feudal structure with lords and serfs, where owners see themselves as protectors going out on a limb to provide for and give opportunity to illegal workers—while workers, with their language barrier, are wholly reliant on the feudal lords overseeing them. As a result, the city’s restaurant world sometimes feels like China on the brink of a Maoist movement, with cries demanding dignity for the working class.

“We are not slaves!” says a boycott flier from Flor de Mayo, one of the restaurants targeted for labor violations. A video on YouTube shows emotional outcries by Columbia students at sit-in protests at the Saigon Grill on University Place last year with a movie soundtrack that evinces a revolutionary tingling.

On the Upper East Side, workers last year won a settlement for back wages they were owed from the Chinese restaurant Our Place, on Third Avenue and East 82nd Street. It was the first victory for organizers Justice Will Be Served and it inspired the Saigon Grill workers to organize.

The picketing at Saigon Grill, on Amsterdam Avenue and West 90th Street, began in April of 2007, following a list of delivery workers’ complaints, including claims that they were paid below minimum wage, were considered responsible for any money stolen from the restaurant and were subjected to absurd fines, like $50 penalties for slamming the restaurant’s door. Latino delivery workers from Flor de Mayo, a Chinese-Peruvian eatery with two West Side branches, stopped by the Saigon Grill picket line to see what was going on. A few months later, in July 2007, the Flor de Mayo workers announced a lawsuit of their own, accusing the restaurant’s owners of violating minimum wage and overtime laws.

The group says that more picketing and lawsuits targeting Manhattan restaurants are already in the works.
Nget, the owner of Saigon Grill, did not respond to my requests to interview him for this piece. His lawyer, Michael Weisberg, said, “This is an ongoing situation and I can’t help you. Thank you.”

The owner of Flor de Mayo was not at the branch I visited on Amsterdam Avenue near West 84th Street and didn’t return a call for comment. But pamphlets at the bar explained his position. On one side of the fliers were Justice Will Be Served’s accusations of injustice and a call for boycott. On the other side was the owner’s response to the claims: “Lies and True Facts (Shame on Whom?)”

On behalf of the Flor de Mayo owners, the flier says, “They said we treat them like slaves—Fact: When they come to work in the morning, first thing they enjoy is their cappuccino, bread and butter, and chicken noodle soup.” It said Flor de Mayo workers enjoy free unlimited access to coffee, soda, rice, beans, soup and chicken all day long and that the workers themselves requested to work six days instead of five to make more money. 

To the claim that Flor de Mayo workers make $1.25 an hour, it says that workers had admitted they made more money with Flor de Mayo than other restaurants and “honestly, who would stay at a job place for 2, 3, or 4 years that pays $1.25 an hour?”

The only person I found who would speak on behalf of the owners was a manager at Ollie’s, at West 84th and Broadway, who declined to give his name.

“There are no problems here. All their employees use punch-in cards. Everyone’s happy,” the manager told me, explaining that all hours and wages were documented. “Most workers don’t want to unionize. They are being used by the organizers. The people reporting to the Labor Department profit off the delivery people—because the lawsuit will guarantee a settlement. But the delivery people are the victims with their lack of knowledge. They don’t benefit in the end, because their illegal status is exposed to the government, and no one in the restaurant business will dare rehire them because they don’t want trouble.”

The Ollie’s manager said that he himself once owned a restaurant but closed his businesses because the labor problems were too much to handle.

Outside the restaurant, I found two deliverymen fixing their bikes. In Chinese they told me that their work situation is OK. Before protests, they were paid $2 an hour plus tips, and now they get paid $4.85 plus tips. One of the men came to America in 2007. The other has been here for one month. They mentioned hearing about the Saigon Grill boss who’s supposedly really bad. They said their boss is good, but one corrected himself and said, “Actually, our boss isn’t that far from the Saigon Grill boss,” and laughed.

But what did customers think? I went to Starbucks three blocks away, between West 87th and 88th streets on Broadway, to ask people where their sympathies lay.

Sasha Leinster, an Upper West Side resident in her late twenties who works in finance, said she used to order from Saigon Grill but stopped once the strikes started. She had thought the strike was over and went back to the restaurant to eat, but when she walked out she saw strikers once again, which made her feel guilty. “I really wonder if other delivery people at other restaurants are doing better, but I support them on principle,” she said. She eats out often (but not at Saigon Grill anymore) and gets delivery once a week.

Alexandra Newman, 23, said Saigon Grill’s food is great, but she hasn’t returned because of the strikes. “I don’t go back because my sister studies labor law,” she said.

Newman’s friend, Gali Chen, 32, said, “Business people need to be smarter. They can just charge an extra $1 per dish to pay the workers better instead of considering it an out-of-pocket expense. Eleven dollars versus $10 a meal can equal a better quality of life.”

Newman noted that unlike many businesses, many of these restaurants don’t increase prices when inflation goes up. She mentioned that even when she places orders using five- or six-year-old delivery menus, she’s astonished to find that the prices don’t change.

“There are so many people who get takeout every night. The restaurant would rake in so much money by just charging an extra $1 per meal, and the people who order wouldn’t even notice the difference,” Newman said. “People shouldn’t be abused because they come from another country. Our responsibility as a community is to take care of other people no matter what their situation is.”

“That’s what taxes are for,” added Gali.

Montrose Graham, 50, a manager in technology, eats out once a week and gets delivery once a week. He avoids the picketed restaurants. “If you let the shop degrade to the point where the workforce walks out, you’ve screwed up as a manager or management,” he said. 

But Joyce Fu, an attorney who lives on the Upper West Side, felt that both labor and management often benefit from illegal working arrangements. “Being an attorney I know that fair labor/wage claims are very easily brought by plaintiffs and many times can be unwarranted,” she said.

“Furthermore, I know that many people are paid under the table and benefit from this because they do not pay taxes on their wages. This obviously could cause employees to be exploited, but the employees are not paying taxes either on their wages, so I guess it goes both ways.”

Patrons I spoke to who came out of Saigon Grill said they didn’t know there were labor disputes, and if they did, they wouldn’t support something that was illegal.

Later, I spoke to Josephine Lee, coordinator of the Justice Will Be Served campaigns. I asked if she felt sorry for Nget. He is a Cambodian-born Chinese who grew up under the Khmer Rouge and came to the United States when he was 18.

“Sometimes,” I suggested to Lee, “people are mean and when they’ve had hard lives themselves they think, ‘If I survived this, everyone else should be able to.’” This incensed Lee.

“You’re justifying their actions!” she said. “Are you saying it’s OK for people who had hard lives to mistreat people?”

“No, it’s not OK, but it might explain why they’re that way.”

I asked her what she thought about the claim that her group was profiting off of the workers’ situation.

“You’re asking leading questions! You’re making it sound like unions are a bad thing.” She asked me what position I was taking for this story. I told her I wasn’t taking sides, merely presenting multiple perspectives.

“It’s clear he did wrong,” Lee said. “We gave him ample opportunity to talk and resolve the issue. Even in the Chinese papers, workers said they wanted to go back to work and not go out front to picket. They’re the ones who want to talk. He’s the one who chose to drag out the issue.”

Lee said she does not feel sorry for Nget. “Owners in the U.S. know that minimum wage is $7.15,” she said. “He can’t pretend not to know that. He was here over 30 years. His testimony is absurd. Workers shouldn’t be treated like dogs. It’s not humane to treat people like that. Some think people are lucky enough to just work to have tips. That’s not enough.”

Lee plans for the boycotts to continue at Saigon Grill until Nget rehires the workers, which he is required to do by Feb. 28, according to the National Labor Relations Board ruling. She plans to hold a press conference that day. Saigon Grill is reportedly working on an appeal.